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Rose Damask
Changeling name: Rose Damask Real name: Abigail Chetwood Apparent Age: 18-22 Born: 1842, in Basingstoke, England Abducted: 1857, at the age of 15 Escaped: 1909, three years before game start, in Texas – having apparently only aged a scant handful of years Seeming and Kith: Fairest Flowering Court: Dawn Virtue and Vice: Hope and Pride History: Abigail was born a child of privilege – the richest and prettiest girl in her small English town. Solidly in the upper-middle-class, she shone at parties and dances, and was eagerly anticipating her own coming-out – as were the young men in town! Unfortunately, they were not the only ones with their eyes on her. The Marquis of Indulgent Dreams developed a fancy for the laughing, confident girl, and stole her away – disguising himself as a human, he manipulated his way into a small country ball, convinced one of Abigail’s brothers to introduce him to her, and quite literally waltzed her into Arcadia. She became the jewel of his collection, the shining beauty that graced his exquisite garden. He brought visitors to see her, to show off her loveliness, her vivacity, her charmingly proper Victorian manners. In private, he demanded more personal devotion from his fair Rose. For roses grew around her – twined in her hair, twisted around her arms, piercing her with sharp thorns if she ever made a motion that was less than lovely, if she ever bore an expression that was less than pleasing. Through it all, Abigail smiled and curtseyed, flirted and charmed and laughed, buried her true feelings as a proper lady of her station was trained to do from birth. An indeterminate amount of time passed – to this day, Abigail is unsure whether she spent mere months there, or whether some fae magic made the years pass by without touching her. Some days it feels like one, others like the other. She became intimately familiar with the Gentry who passed through her Keeper’s garden, learning their likes and dislikes, learning how to tease them and wheedle them and win their favor, keeping herself alive and unharmed another day. And every day her anger grew – anger, and faith that it would all mean something in the end, that she could one day escape from her decadent prison and breathe freely again. She held on to her anger and her hope, kept the small flame alive inside herself, and waited. And one day, the chance came – her Keeper distracted, his guests lulled into complacency. With one desperate movement, Abigail tore herself free of the briars and fled, bleeding, into the Hedge. Although she could hear the pursuit hot behind her, she ran, and the brambles seemed to help her rather than hinder her. Her delicate shoes found purchase on ground that foundered the hounds and horses of her Keeper and his friends. And long after the chase had died down, when she found herself completely lost, she ran into the luckiest thing of all: another escaping Changeling, who led her out of the Hedge, to a safe place far from her home. There, in half-wild Texas, she made a new home. Under the name Rose Damask, she became part of a freehold and later a motley, creating a new family to replace the one now lost by time and distance. Despite having no combat skills, she impressed her freehold with her courage, more than once helping to resolve situations via “soft skills” at no small risk to herself. Her willingness to risk herself to help others, and the glibness of her tongue, attracted the attention of a local Legate. Although she is far from qualifying yet, she has spent the last two years working with Legate Rattlesnake Finn in preparation to be tested for entry into the Legacy of the Black Apples. Through it all, Abigail – or Rose – has not lost her vision of a better world. The fear and paranoia of changeling society cries out, in her mind, for a better way. She strongly believes in the concept of mutual trust – indeed, she believes that changelings will never be truly free of Arcadia until paranoia and fear of each other can be eradicated. The enmity between the courts, the constant fear of Loyalists, even the automatic hatred towards Fetches (her own Fetch is still in England, and apparently living well; Abigail wishes her the best) distracts Changelings from banding against their true enemy: the Gentry, always the Gentry, only the Gentry. Some may call her willingness to trust other changelings naïve; to her, it is a calculated decision, made with her eyes open. Someone must ''take the first step in offering trust, otherwise this small community of survivors will fracture and become easy prey. If she is the one who must take that risk first, it’s worth doing. For that, and other reasons, she is a member of the Dawn Court. Rattlesnake wasn’t in Warwick the day the Spider came. Shaking, Rose stood in for him and tried to buy time for the freehold, with limited success – she distracted the Gentry long enough for perhaps half of the freehold to flee, disappearing into the Hedge before the Spider lost interest and commanded his minions to attack. Rose’s motley was one of the last to escape, Rose weeping bitterly for friends she had failed to save. Lost in the thorns, chasing the phantoms of familiar voices, the motley wandered… until an exit was glimpsed through thorns and vines… '''Appearance and Demeanor:' Beautiful and fearless are the best words to describe Rose. Physically, she is an image of loveliness – softly curling light brown hair, a sweetly curved body, gentle dark eyes. Like many of the Dawn Court, she favors rich fabrics for her clothing, drawing on styles from the Renaissance or earlier. On formal occasions she prefers white or gold, tinged sometimes with shades of light pink or purple – the colors of dawn. Day-to-day, she tends towards more earthy shades: greens, browns, and dark, dark reds. Deep red roses twine through her hair, and the scent of rose attar surrounds her. Her Mantle manifests as a soft glow around her, and the cold, clear scent of mist evaporating in the morning light – a whisper of a brisk, cold wind blowing away the nighttime phantoms and fears, making way for the sunrise. Rose has the personal charisma to convince the most reticent changeling to stride boldly into battle, if she walks with them. The confidence and presence she learned as a girl in England has not left her – if anything it’s grown, tempered by her Durance into true strength. She is passionate about what she believes, and will bend your ear about the future of changeling society and how best to affect it. She is capital-G Good, often doing the Right Thing regardless of personal cost, and drawing others into doing the same through sheer force of will and personality. If she ever feels fear, she doesn’t show it. She gets along just fine with the seasonal courts, though she feels that they lack focus. The directional courts, she’s much more wary of, though she harbors no ill-will towards them. She likes the Moon Court in small doses, but has no patience for the Sun Court. Oddly, of all the courts besides her own she likes the Dusk Court the best – despite having a completely different expectation of the outcome, they tend to pursue the same course of action. She can respect that. Soundtrack: Great Big Sea, Sally Ann Great Big Sea, When I Am King